A Sleuth Comes Fully Into His Own

When novelist Robert Crais introduced Elvis Cole in “The Monkey’s Raincoat” a little over a decade ago, the West Coast private eye owed much to Robert B. Parker’s well-established Boston sleuth, Spenser. Though younger and hipper (Spenser pounded the bags at Henry Cimoli’s gym; Cole achieves mind-body perfection with taekwondo), he was just as fast with a quip and just as ruggedly efficient at solving crimes and sauteing veggies. During the intervening years, Crais gradually has moved Elvis out of Spenser’s shadow with plots and situations of increasing moral complexity that, in turn, have added dimension to the character. In the ambitious new “L.A. Requiem” (Doubleday, $23.95, 382 pages), the author has created that rara avis--the series entry that threatens to break through the genre barrier.

Some of this has to do with technique. Unlike previous Elvis novels, this one is not limited solely to time-honored first-person narration. Key chapters are devoted to the difficult past and perilous present of his heretofore enigmatic partner Joe Pike. Some sections follow the gradual decline of a particularly well-drawn edgy LAPD officer named Samantha Dolan and still others focus on the elusive serial killer whom they all seek.

“Requiem” offers more than just multiple points of view, however. Crais has crafted a full-bodied novel that explores such topics as honor and friendship and justice and love, that brings its protagonists to a new point of self-awareness and, not incidentally, that provides the kind of puzzle plot that sends mystery fans into paroxysms of joy.

*

“Every Dead Thing” (Simon & Schuster, $25, 395 pages) is a first novel by John Connolly, a reporter for the Irish Times in Dublin. Its hero is an ex-NYPD detective named Charlie “Bird” Parker who roams New York and, eventually, Louisiana searching for the maniac who flayed and murdered his wife and young daughter. Suspense is one thing, but there’s something unsettling about books like this one that linger over corpses and body parts in the name of noir. When the victims are children, the disquiet is even more profound. This is, after all, fiction, supposedly entertaining fiction. At one point Connolly has his killer send the hapless Parker a package containing the flesh peeled from his 3-year-old daughter’s face. Are we having fun yet?

The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’ Gorman on audio books.

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* This Sunday: Kenneth Anderson on the erotics of virtue, a new look at “Story of O”; Jonathan Levi on Ralph Ellison’s “Juneteenth”; Eugen Weber on Thomas Harris’ “Hannibal”; Pete Hamill on Italo Calvino.